


Hamlet - The Physics Edition

by rngrdead



Category: Hamlet - Shakespeare
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-29
Updated: 2014-07-29
Packaged: 2018-02-10 23:21:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2044065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rngrdead/pseuds/rngrdead
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A play within a play. This combines the tension between classical and quantum physicists' theories wrapped in the genius of Shakespeare's story - Hamlet.</p><p>Written as a one act play for the stage, it is 'tongue in cheek' English/Physics crossover, but should provide the reader with some amusing alternative quotes for this all time Shakespeare great.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hamlet - The Physics Edition

**Author's Note:**

> Hamlet - the Physics Edition
> 
> By Josie H (rngrdead) 
> 
> First Performed by: Physics Student Players - John Paul College, Queensland, Australia, 1996
> 
> Written as a 15min one scene play, its origins lie in an inter-college drama competition, mad/funny conversation had one lunchtime, lots of late afternoon rehearsals and a winning audience response. Since then it has been performed numerous times by numbers of players and gained accolades from science and english faculty members alike.
> 
> Anyone who wishes to perform it is welcome, and we PSP/JPC alumni would love to hear from you.
> 
> BTW biggest complaint was from the English Dept when students used our edition for quotes in their essays of the Bard ;-)

Hamlet - the Physics Edition

~Stage set, props and costuming at director's discretion~

~The Players to be noted on programme or via projection on curtain~

Hamlet: Neils Bohr (Energy levels)  
Horatio: Albert Einstein (Photoelectric effect etc)  
Ophelia: Heissenberg (uncertainty principle)  
Polonius: Aristotle (light as element)  
Ghost: Max Planck (father of modern physics)  
King: Issac Newton (light as particle)  
Laertes: Schrodinger (wave equations)  
Yorick: Archimedes (light as ether)  
Queen Gertrude: Marie Curie (radioactivity)  
Rozencrantz: Hertz (UV and photoelectric observations)  
Guildenstern: Maxwell (EM equations)  
Grave digger: Lorentz (equations of light)

~ ::Narrator or Voice:: ~

Tragedy of the first order is a rare phenomenon. It came into being in Greece in the fifth century B.C. and only reemerged when Shakespeare wrote Hamlet in the 1600s. Unlike the earlier tragic forms, only in Shakespeare does the comic and tragic stand side by side, not to be dissociated, as it is in life itself.

Hamlet's story lives on and is here retold by a new group of players. Their theories and formulae entwined, their lives and research forever scarred by encounters with conflicting ideas.

Here we see Hamlet (Neils Bohr) desperately trying to reconcile the demise of his father (Max Planck the father of modern Physics), with the sudden marriage and coronation of his wicked uncle (Newton the classicist). His free thinking Mother (Madame Curie), ancient courtier Polonius (Aristotle) and uncertain young Ophelia (Heissenberg), all try to find the source of Hamlet's melancholy. Only his best friend, Horatio (Einstein) is able to approach a unified picture of what ails the prince. And so the tragedy begins..........

The PLAY:

~Laertes/Schrodinger, Polonius/Aristotle, Queen/Marie Curie, King/Newton, Horatio/Einstein, Ophelia/Heissenberg and Hamlet/Bohr on stage~  
::Laertes/Schrodinger::  
My dread lord Newton  
Your leave and favour to return to France,  
From whence, though willingly I came to Denmark  
To show my duty in your coronation as Physics king,  
Yet now I must confess, that duty done  
My thoughts and wishes bend again toward France  
For I must test my wave theories  
And bow them to your gracious leave and pardon.

::King/Newton::  
Have you your father's leave? What say you Aristotle?

::Polonius/Aristotle::  
He hath my lord, wrung from me my slow leave.

~Laertes/Schrodinger, Ophelia/Heissenberg and Polonius/Aristotle move to the back of the scene~

::King/Newton::  
Now my cousin Bohr, how is it that the clouds still hang on you?

::Queen/Curie::  
Good Bohr, cast thy nightly colour off,  
And let thine eyes look like a friend on the spectrum of Denmark.

::Hamlet/Bohr::  
Dear madam, have I but taken on countenance customary  
For those whom mourn the theories and a man  
Whose fruitful river of the eye led me to denote truly  
The nature of mine thinking.  
Nay mother, this inky cloak worn not for show,  
These but the trappings and suits of woe.

~Exit all but Laertes/Schrodinger and Ophelia/Heissenberg~

::Laertes/Schrodinger::  
Dear sister, think no more of Bohr and his theories  
For he though he may flatter and say he loves yours,  
He has the weight of the modernists to consider.  
If with too credent ear you list his lectures  
Then weigh what loss your honour may sustain.  
Good Heissenberg, Be certain,  
Jump not a'bed with the theories of Bohr.  
But I tarry too long. I must away to further my theories and feed my cat. Farewell sister.

~Laertes/S Exit~

::Horatio/Einstein::  
My honoured lord and friend  
This very night have the guards seen the  
Steely countenance of thy father, Planck's ghost.  
Come, good Bohr for he awaits your favour.

~Enter Ghost/Planck and Hamlet/Einstein~

::Hamlet/Bohr::  
Alas, poor ghost. Speak, I'll go no further.

::Ghost/Planck::  
I am Max Planck, the father of modern physics' spirit,  
Doomed for a certain term to walk the night,  
Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature  
Are burnt and purged away.  
I shall a tale unfold which would harrow up thy soul.  
List, list, O, list!  
If thou didst thy father's theories love ----

::Hamlet/Bohr::  
Oh God! Whose chaos create this.

::Ghost/Planck::  
Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder  
Murder most foul.  
It is given about, that while retiring in mine orchard  
A researcher stung me, discounted my logic  
Abused my considered constant  
And rendered my quantum theories invalid.  
This researcher now wears my crown,  
Publishing his classical papers above all, and  
Joining in his company the lady Queen, your mother, Madam Curie.

::Hamlet/Bohr::  
I will with wings as swift as meditation  
Sweep to thy revenge  
I shall, thy theories confirm, thy name restore  
And thy legacy maintain and extend.

~Exit Ghost/Planck~

~Enter Horatio/Einstein~

::Horatio/Einstein::  
How now my lord?

::Hamlet/Bohr::  
Good Horatio, friend, be silent yet  
And not surprised at my future apparent lack of reason  
I would fain madness for a purpose.  
That the unhappy ghost may be appeased.

::Horatio/Einstein::  
I shall be guided by you my lord.

~Exit All~

::Enter Polonius/Aristotle and Ophelia/Heissenberg::

::Polonius/Aristotle::  
What is't, Heissenberg, he hath said to you?

::Ophelia/Heissenberg::  
He hath, my lord, of late made many tenders  
Of his affection to me.

::Polonius/Aristotle::  
Affection pooh! You speak like a green student,  
Unsifted in such perilous circumstance.  
Do you believe his theories, his tenders as you call them?

::Ophelia/Heissenberg::  
I do not know, my lord, what I should think.  
In principle, I am uncertain.

::Polonius/Aristotle::  
He is young and reckless, seeing not the importance  
Of ether nor classical theories, but will withal  
Realise his error and return, and leave you maiden,  
In academic disgrace. Therefore must I advise:  
Be not seen with Bohr another moment.

::Ophelia/Heissenberg::  
I will obey my lord.

~Exit all~ 

~Enter Hamlet/Bohr with Polonius/ Aristotle behind~

::Polonius/Aristotle::  
Do you know me, my lord?

?::Hamlet/Bohr::  
Excellent well. You are a fishmonger.

::Polonius/Aristotle::  
Not I, my lord

::Hamlet/Bohr::  
Let your daughter walk in the sun  
That she might conceive of theories uncertain, look to't friend.

::Polonius/Aristotle::  
[Aside] Still harping on my daughter -  
What do you read my lord?

::Hamlet/Bohr::  
Words, words, words.

::Polonius/Aristotle::  
What is the matter?

::Hamlet/Bohr::  
Between who?

::Polonius/Aristotle::  
The matter that you read my lord.

::Hamlet/Bohr::  
Slanders, sir; for this satirical rogue says  
That there thinkers who say there are but four elements  
Fire, earth, air and water.  
That they believe light is come from the ether  
Though neither experiment nor math  
Prove it so. I would not have it set down thus.

::Polonius/Aristotle::  
[Aside] Though this is madness, yet there is scientific method in't.  
I will take my leave of you.

::Hamlet/Bohr::  
You cannot take from me anything that I will more willingly part withal- Except my life, except my life... except... my life. 

~Exit Polonius/Aristotle~  
~Enter Rozencrantz/Maxwell and Guildenstern/Hertz~

::Rozencrantz/Maxwell::  
My honoured lord!

::Guildenstern/Hertz::  
My most dear lord.

::Hamlet/Bohr::  
My excellent good friends. How now Maxwell, ah......Hertz.  
I know you were sent for, your task to restore my mirth.  
Bring you news of the players?

::Rozencrantz/Maxwell::  
Ay sir, that they should delight and give you relief of your sad fashion.

::Hamlet/Bohr::  
He that plays the king shall be welcome!!  
[Aside] I shall my own matter have them enact  
The plays the thing, in which we might catch a king!  
~Exit all~

~Enter Polonius/Aristotle Queen/Curie and Ophelia/Heissenberg~

::Polonius/Aristotle::  
My lady Queen, might it be my dear daughter at the core of this?  
Thus madam will we bestow ourselves to observe.  
Heissenberg, appear you here, gracious so please you,  
And read on this book. 

::Ophelia/Heissenberg reads::  
The others hide

::Hamlet/Bohr::  
To be, or not to be: that is the question:  
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to consider light a particle or wave,  
Or to take arms against a sea of classical theories  
And by opposing end them. To prove, to write-  
No more - and by writing to say we end  
The headache, and the thousand natural shocks  
That ideas are heir to! 'Tis a confirmation  
Devoutly to be wished.  
\-- Soft you now, the fair Heissenberg.

::Ophelia/Heissenberg::  
Good my lord, how does your honour on this day?

::Hamlet/Bohr::  
I humbly thank you; well, well.

::Ophelia/Heissenberg::  
My lord, I have remembrances, papers of yours  
That I have longed long to redeliver.  
I pray you now receive them.

::Hamlet/Bohr::  
No, not I, I never gave you aught.

::Ophelia/Heissenberg::  
My honoured lord, you know right well you did.  
Take these again, for the noble mind  
Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.  
There, my lord.

::Hamlet/Bohr::  
Get thee to infinity. Why wouldst thou be a breeder of stupidity?  
What should such thinkers as I do crawling between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves all; believe none of us. Go thy ways to infinity.  
Where's your father?

~Ophelia/Heissenberg runs out~

~All on Stage - Announce the play - Narrator or story board [Mimed play of murder may be inserted if time allows] ~The story told and that King/Newton rushed out upset~

::Polonius/Aristotle::  
I will bestow myself madam, for your safety and later counsel.

::Hamlet/Bohr::  
Now mother what is the matter?

::Queen/Curie::  
You have your father much offended.

::Hamlet/Bohr::  
You have my father much offended.

::Queen/Curie::  
Come, come you answer with an idle tongue.

::Hamlet/Bohr::  
Go, go you question with a wicked tongue.  
Sit you down, you shall not go  
Til I tell you of the inmost needs of your research.

::Queen/Curie::  
What wilt thou do? Murder me?

::Polonius/Aristotle::  
What ho! Help!

::Hamlet/Bohr::  
How now a rat! ~ Hamlet/Bohr draws sword and thrusts through the screen killing Polonius/Aristotole~  
Light is no element!

~Polonius/Aristotle falls forward~  
::Polonius/Aristotle:: Alas my ideas are slain.

::Queen/Curie::  
O what a rash and bloody deed.

::Hamlet/Bohr::  
Almost as bad good mother,  
As kill a king's ideas and marry with his classicist brother.  
Peace, sit you down and let me wring your heart.

~Hamlet/Bohr is seen to explain the father's death in mime. Enter King/Newton with Rozencrantz/Maxwell and Guildenstern/Hertz~

::King/Newton::  
Now, Bohr, where is Aristotle?

::Hamlet/Bohr::  
At supper.  
Not where he eats but where he is eaten.

::King/Newton::  
Alas, alas. Destroying established theories is a heavy deed  
So must you to England for thine especial safety.

::Hamlet/Bohr::  
For England?

::King/Newton::  
Ay, now must you go.

::Hamlet/Bohr::  
Very well, come to England.

~Hamlet/Bohr withdraws~

::King/Newton::  
Contained in this letter are the instructions  
So shall his research and ideas be destroyed  
Do it England!

~All leave but King/Newton~

~Enter Laertes/Schrodinger~

::Laertes/Schrodinger::  
And so have I a noble father lost,  
A sister driven to uncertain terms,  
Whose worth may go back and forwards as chaos dictates.  
But my revenge will come.

::King/Newton::  
Sir as your needs dictate.

~Enter Queen/Curie~

::Queen/Curie::  
Alas she is drowned! Drowned!  
The uncertain maid fell, while in heady contemplation,  
Into the infinite waters of uncertainty.  
Not knowing how to test for anything  
She was pulled to a muddy death.

::Laertes/Schrodinger::  
Too much of infinity hast thou, poor Heissenberg,  
Disappeared, uncertainty hath o'ertaken her.  
Oh lord, must I take leave of thee.

~All exit~

~Enter Grave digger/Lorentz, Hamlet/Bohr and Horatio/Einstein~

::Grave digger/Lorentz::  
Good day, my lords.

::Hamlet/Bohr::  
And to you good sir.  
How long hast thou been grave maker?  
And whose skull is that sir.

::Grave digger/Lorentz::  
Why two score years, sir.  
And this skull, sir, was sir, Archimedes' skull

::Hamlet/Bohr::  
Let me see  
~takes the skull~ I knew him, Einstein, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. His buoyancy theories have borne me up a thousand times. Where are your gibes now? Your gambols, your songs, your flashes of inspired thinking.  
Ah, Einstein... But look you who is coming?

::Grave digger/Lorentz::  
Good sir that be the funeral of the lady Heissenberg what disappeared into her own theories not two days past.

~Funeral arrives~

~Laertes/Schrodinger rushes forward and grabs Hamlet/Bohr~

::Laertes/Schrodinger::  
The devil take thy soul. You have killed my father and driven a loved sister to madness and death.

::Hamlet/Bohr::  
I prithee take thy hand from around my throat.

::King/Newton::  
Pluck them asunder!  
~Aside to Laertes/Schrodinger~ Good sir you shall have satisfaction but let it be in a dual sir, where all may bear witness to his faults and follies, and you return with honour to finish him.  
~To the crowd~ So shall Schrodinger put aside his anger and instead vent his grief on a field of sport. What say you Bohr, will you play with wit and parry with rapier that you may regain Schrodinger's favour.

::Hamlet/Bohr::  
Good sir, I humbly accept.

~The FIGHT ( all on stage)~

::Horatio/Einstein::  
Be warned good sir, something is afoot. Use thy theories with deft hand and assuredness.

::Hamlet/Bohr::  
Let us begin

~Combatants circle each other and begin, each determined stroke accompanied by speech~

::Laertes/Schrodinger::  
Classical theory dictates that the electron in any orbits must needs radiate

::Hamlet/Bohr::  
But energy is constant in such orbits and so no radiation.

~Leartes/Schrodinger is touched by the foil~

::Horatio/Einstein::  
A hit, a most palpable hit.

::King/Newton::  
Stay, give me a drink. Bohr, this Neutrino is thine.  
Here's to thy health. Give him the cup. 

~Hamlet/Bohr waves it away. The bout restarts~

Laertes/Schrodinger  
Light observes all the equations for wave formations.

::Hamlet/Bohr::  
Yet acts as particle in circumstances, and can be demonstrated as such.

~Hamlet/Bohr nicks Laertes/Schrodinger side~

::Horatio/Einstein::  
Another hit, I confess a touch.

::Queen/Curie::  
I drink to your health. Our son shall win Newton.

::King/Newton::  
Do not drink Maree. [Aside] It is a poison cup but too late.

::Queen/Curie::  
I will my lord; I pray you pardon me.

~The bout restarts~

::Laertes/Schrodinger::  
Your theories cannot account for waves of a particle

::Hamlet/Bohr::  
How now sir, but at high speed, my orbital frequency theories concur with those of both quantum and classical theories.

::Laertes/ Schrodinger::  
Your maths cannot account for time independence, nor three dimensions.

::Horatio/Einstein::  
They bleed on both sides.

~The queen collapses~

::Horatio/Einstein::  
Look to the Queen there!

::Queen/Curie::  
The drink Bohr, it was radioactive. I am poisoned. 

~Laertes/Schrodinger collapses too~

::Laertes/Schrodinger::  
It is here Bohr, though art slain; no medicine in the world can do thee good. Envenomed and unbated we are both done for. Our names besmirched and our research forgotten under the weight of classicism. Newton is blame. 

::Hamlet/Bohr::  
O villainy! Then venom do thy work!  
~Hamlet/Bohr attacks the King/Newton~ ::Hamlet/Bohr:: You cannot account for quantum leaps, you cannot even work out the parameters of a tri-neutron star gravitational system. 

King/Newton  
Defend me friends.... I die.

~King/Newton dies. Hamlet/Bohr collapses into Horatio/Einstein's arms~

::Hamlet/Bohr::  
I die Einstein, I have no explanation for variable time,  
Nor of subatomic particles  
But let it be. I exchange forgiveness with Schrodinger,  
And then adieu, I am dead Einstein!

~Kisses Horatio/Einstein's hand 

::Horatio/Einstein::  
Never believe it, there is yet some.

::Hamlet/Bohr::  
Let it be Einstein, the potent poison quite o'ertakes my spirit  
Thou livest, report me and my cause aright,  
There is a quantised model for Hydrogen.  
But many things stand yet unknown, I leave thee to discover.

~Hamlet/Bohr dies~

::Horatio/Einstein::  
Good night sweet prince,  
And flights of photons sing thee to thy rest.

END


End file.
